Experience developing and promoting games on Android
Hello! I recently published my first serious project, so I decided to share my experience, because such articles were very useful to me when I was developing my application. But after reading dozens of similar articles, I noticed that almost nothing is written about things that at first glance seem not very important, but which in fact have a great influence on the promotion of the application. I will divide the whole topic into 5 points, which turned out to be important, but they are rarely mentioned. Let me remind you that this is not a tutorial, but a story of my personal experience. I also note that I have not achieved stunning heights so far, which helped me analyze my mistakes and made me try different ways of promotion, from which I chose the most effective ones.
1) The choice of genre and style. From the very beginning I knew what I wanted - a minimalist logic game without reference to time. The “2048” genre was a standard for me, but the further I went into the mechanics, the more boring the game became. As it turned out, this problem exists in all such games, namely, uniformity. For an hour of the game, you can develop an algorithm for which you are gaining crazy records, obsessively performing the same actions. Later I stopped at the genre of "4 pics word". Yes, the genre is worn out and absolutely not original, but it has a number of advantages that just fit into my scheme:
I immediately thought of how the game would stand out among the same - drawn icons instead of photos (which also solved the problem with the rights to the pictures).
2) Test the application on your friends! Just without explaining anything, give them a device and see what happens. During the development process, some things become obvious to you, but not understandable to people who see it the first time. In this way, I identified the first problem: no one could understand how to use the hint. I decided to use less text in the interface, so the help icon had to be dragged down. At first I wanted to add training, but I decided that in such a simple game it would only repel, so I replaced the button mechanics, after which everything became good. In the future, they helped to catch more than one bug, but I think you caught the point, so I will go on.
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3) Select the date of publication. As it turned out, this stage is MOST IMPORTANT in the promotion of the game. The fact is that for the first 3 weeks your application is considered new and during this period it is easiest to enter the tops and gain the initial audience. When I laid out the game, I picked up the most unfortunate time for this. A day after the publication, my girlfriend spilled tea on the laptop, after which he safely fell out, the next day I took it in for repair, but I completely forgot that the project remained there, so for 3 days I could not fix the errors that occurred. I did not want to promote the application because I would like to promote a good game without bugs and flaws. Repair of the laptop cost half the price of the laptop, despite the fact that the numbers do not work on the keyboard and the battery is covered, which also had to be bought. As a result, I have no money left for advertising and all kinds of promotion. After that, a lot of personal files that are very disturbing, so be vigilant and publish the application without haste and only when you are sure that you can spend a lot of time on it.
4) Select the name. Initially, I planned to call the game “Logic”, because I did not find such a name in the top, but my application did not even make it into the top 500 on such a request, given the complete coincidence by name and the description stuffed with this word. So I changed the name to “Just logic”, which also produced no results. In the end, I decided to give a unique name that will not have competitors. Thus was born the name "Logi", which perfectly suited to the original icon.
After such frauds, I managed to get to the top with only one download, which was what I needed.
5) Proper promotion. The realities of Google Play are such that it’s very difficult, even almost impossible, to make it to the top without a publisher. Now even frank slag makes its way to the top, if you invest money into it. But if the game is good, then at low cost you can succeed. Here are a few observations that I will gladly share.
Note that the most effective time for promotion is the first 3 weeks after publication (not A, B tests).
This is all, some stages are no less important, but so much has been written and told about them.
If you read to the end, then I hope the article was helpful to you and you will help me get a little closer to my goal by downloading my game.
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sinqueen.logic
1) The choice of genre and style. From the very beginning I knew what I wanted - a minimalist logic game without reference to time. The “2048” genre was a standard for me, but the further I went into the mechanics, the more boring the game became. As it turned out, this problem exists in all such games, namely, uniformity. For an hour of the game, you can develop an algorithm for which you are gaining crazy records, obsessively performing the same actions. Later I stopped at the genre of "4 pics word". Yes, the genre is worn out and absolutely not original, but it has a number of advantages that just fit into my scheme:
- The frequency of updates. This allows you to keep the same users in the game for a long time.
- There is no "GIANT". Those. There are no developers and publishers like Glu, Gameloft, etc. Which makes it easier to hit the top, in which, by the way, there are no obvious favorites. In the top is always the game that is often updated.
- Excellent minimalist design, which greatly simplifies the task.
I immediately thought of how the game would stand out among the same - drawn icons instead of photos (which also solved the problem with the rights to the pictures).
2) Test the application on your friends! Just without explaining anything, give them a device and see what happens. During the development process, some things become obvious to you, but not understandable to people who see it the first time. In this way, I identified the first problem: no one could understand how to use the hint. I decided to use less text in the interface, so the help icon had to be dragged down. At first I wanted to add training, but I decided that in such a simple game it would only repel, so I replaced the button mechanics, after which everything became good. In the future, they helped to catch more than one bug, but I think you caught the point, so I will go on.
')
3) Select the date of publication. As it turned out, this stage is MOST IMPORTANT in the promotion of the game. The fact is that for the first 3 weeks your application is considered new and during this period it is easiest to enter the tops and gain the initial audience. When I laid out the game, I picked up the most unfortunate time for this. A day after the publication, my girlfriend spilled tea on the laptop, after which he safely fell out, the next day I took it in for repair, but I completely forgot that the project remained there, so for 3 days I could not fix the errors that occurred. I did not want to promote the application because I would like to promote a good game without bugs and flaws. Repair of the laptop cost half the price of the laptop, despite the fact that the numbers do not work on the keyboard and the battery is covered, which also had to be bought. As a result, I have no money left for advertising and all kinds of promotion. After that, a lot of personal files that are very disturbing, so be vigilant and publish the application without haste and only when you are sure that you can spend a lot of time on it.
4) Select the name. Initially, I planned to call the game “Logic”, because I did not find such a name in the top, but my application did not even make it into the top 500 on such a request, given the complete coincidence by name and the description stuffed with this word. So I changed the name to “Just logic”, which also produced no results. In the end, I decided to give a unique name that will not have competitors. Thus was born the name "Logi", which perfectly suited to the original icon.
After such frauds, I managed to get to the top with only one download, which was what I needed.
5) Proper promotion. The realities of Google Play are such that it’s very difficult, even almost impossible, to make it to the top without a publisher. Now even frank slag makes its way to the top, if you invest money into it. But if the game is good, then at low cost you can succeed. Here are a few observations that I will gladly share.
- Order advertising in social. networks paying for clicks and choosing the desired targeting. Thus, the ratio of clicks to installations will be almost one hundred percent and you will get installations cheaper than ordering installations directly.
- The order of installations is a very dirty move, but now the GP is a swamp, in which almost everything is dirty, so this is the main tool for getting into the tops.
- Post game in other stor. This gives a big boost to the overall statistics and settings, but absolutely does not affect the GP. If possible, do not lay out your APK, but simply leave links to the GP.
- Thematic forums are the most energy-intensive and difficult, but the most effective free way to promote.
Note that the most effective time for promotion is the first 3 weeks after publication (not A, B tests).
This is all, some stages are no less important, but so much has been written and told about them.
If you read to the end, then I hope the article was helpful to you and you will help me get a little closer to my goal by downloading my game.
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sinqueen.logic
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/334410/
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